Canada wildfire season declared worst on record

• Rebecca Falconer

THE HILL

TODAY

Smoke from northeastern Ontario and central western Quebec wildfires creates a haze across the skyline in Toronto, Ontario, on Wednesday. Photo: Mert Alper Dervis/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Firefighters in Canada are now battling 497 active wildfires across the country after 31 new blazes ignited, according to the latest data from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.

The big picture: New figures show 3,023 fires have burned across some 19.7 million acres of land during what officials this week declared has been Canada's worst wildfire season on record.

• Smoke from the fires has triggered multiple air quality alerts in Canada and across the U.S. since the country's worst-ever fire season began in April.
• Chicago, D.C., and Detroit were among the latest cities to endure some of the world's worst air quality on Thursday morning.

Threat level: Inhaling high concentrations of wildfire smoke at ground level can cause serious health complications and is particularly dangerous for elderly populations and those with heart ailments or asthma.

• Wildfire smoke poses a threat to people's health even when hundreds of miles from the fire sites because of its harmful microscopic particles, studies show.

Context: Multiple studies show human-caused climate change is a key driver behind increased wildfire risk and that heat waves are more likely to occur, be more intense and last longer due to this.

Go deeper: Canada's wildfire smoke emissions break records

Smoke from historic Canadian wildfires again triggers air alerts across U.S.

• Jacob Knutson

THE HILL

Updated 14 hours ago - Energy & Environment

A person wearing a mask while riding a scooter as a smokey haze fills the air in downtown Chicago on June 28. Photo:Scott Olson/Getty Images

Smoke from unprecedented wildfires in Canada triggered poor air quality alerts over swaths of the U.S. again on Wednesday, with multiple cities reporting some of the worst air pollution levels of any major city around the world.

The latest: While continuing to choke the Great Lakes region and the upper Midwest Wednesday, the low-lying smoke also drifted southeast and began affecting Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic cities.

• Canadian cities, too, were also greatly affected by the smoke, with Toronto reporting the worst air quality for major cities around the world on Wednesday, according to Swiss air technology company IQAir.

Why it matters: Smoke from unprecedented Canadian wildfires, which have been exacerbated by human-caused climate change and global warming, has repeatedly choked North American cities this summer, and additional rounds of smoke may follow.

• Canada is experiencing its worst wildfire season on record, driven by extreme heat events and exacerbating drought conditions, according to data from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center (CIFFC).
• Because of their size, locations and behavior, the fires are not expected to be extinguished anytime soon either by firefighters or a major shift in weather conditions until after summer ends, Axios' Andrew Freedman reports.

Threat level: Inhaling wildfire smoke when its present in high concentrations at ground level can cause serious health complications and is especially dangerous for elderly populations and people with heart ailments or asthma.

• An air quality action day was declared for all of northeast Illinois and northwest Indiana for Wednesday, meaning fine particulate matter and other pollutants could build to unhealthy levels in the outdoor air.
• Air quality alerts across the Upper Midwest are expected to remain in effect until Thursday, according to the National Weather Service.

By the numbers: Chicago had the second worst air quality for major cities around the world Wednesday with a 181 — or a code red — on the Air Quality Index (AQI), which is considered dangerous for sensitive groups.

• Detroit and Minneapolis followed with the second and third worst levels, respectively.
• Cleveland, which wasn't included in IQAir's ranking system, had an AQI of 238 on Wednesday afternoon, which is considered dangerous for all people.
• An Environmental Protection Agency monitor near Chippewa Lake, Ohio, was reporting an AQI of 309, which is a code Maroon — the highest alert level of the index.

Zoom in: The Cleveland skyline couldn't be seen from live cameras positioned just a few miles from the shore on Wednesday, while visibility at the city's international airport fell to 1.25 miles multiple times throughout the day.

• A slight haze and the smell of smoke were present in Washington, D.C. Wednesday, where air quality fell to levels unhealthy to sensitive groups of people.
• The smoke caused a thick haze in downtown Chicago on Tuesday and Wednesday, reducing visibility at Chicago-O'Hare International Airport to 1.25 miles for several hours on both days.

The big picture: Winds have also carried the smoke across the Atlantic Ocean over to Europe, where the sun was partially shrouded in areas of Portugal and Spain on Tuesday.

• 476 wildfires were burning across Canada on Wednesday, including 234 out-of-control fires.
• On Tuesday, CIFFC reported that 2,957 fires this season have burnt 19.3 million acres (7.8 million hectares) in in Canada, which is an area equivalent to all of Michigan's forest land.
• The reported total number of fires jumped to 2,988 by Wednesday, while the burned acreage went up to around 19.8 million acres (8 million hectares).

Go deeper: Heatwave affects 45 million people from Southwest to Miss. Valley

MEXICO

Baroque church emerges from drought-stricken reservoir


Daniel Esparza - published on 06/28/23

A 16th-century Catholic church emerged from a reservoir in Mexico, after water levels dramatically fell due to an intense, ongoing drought.

A16th-century Catholic church emerged from a reservoir in Mexico, after water levels dramatically fell due to an intense, ongoing drought.

The structure, built by Dominican friars led by Bartolomé de las Casas in the mid 1500s, and originally dedicated to the Apostle James, sits in the Nezahualcoyotl Reservoir in Chiapas – a dam built on the Grijalva River in 1966. The reservoir is currently just at 29% capacity.

People visit the Quechula church that emerged from the Malpaso Dam due to a drought that dried up the Grijalba River in Nuevo Quechula, Chiapas, on June 16, 202
RAUL VERA/AFP/East News

The ruins of the baroque church, which was abandoned in the mid 18th century due to a plague, often partially emerge when water levels are low, and it is customary that tourists arrive by boat to visit it. But this year’s drought has left it totally exposed – so tourists can now just walk or drive to its very doors.

A devastating heatwave

High temperatures and the absence of rain have already claimed eight lives across Mexico in the past week. The low water level in the Nezahualcoyotl Reservoir is affecting the local fishermen, who also engage in tilapia fish farming.

“About five months ago, the water started to recede excessively, going beyond the normal levels,” Darinel Gutiérrez, a local fisherman, told Euronews. “How am I supposed to support my family? Right now, I have nothing.”

UK

Stephen Flynn asks 'near billionaire' Rishi Sunak 'when was the last time he struggled to pay a bill'

The SNP Westminster leader said that the Prime Minister was 'out of touch' and that the Tories were 'soon to be out of time'


Andrew Quinn

 28 JUN 2023

Stephen Flynn has slammed "near billionaire" Rishi Sunak for having "patronised the public" over mortgage rate rises during Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday. The SNP Westminster leader said that the Prime Minister was "out of touch" and asked him "when was the last time he struggled to pay a bill".

He also had a go at the PM and Labour for not committing to public sector pay rises which were recommended by independent review bodies. Sunak came under fire earlier this week after he urged the public to “hold our nerve” over an increase in interest rates which have left mortgage-holders bracing for a big jump in their monthly repayments.

Flynn first paid tribute to SNP legend Winnie Ewing and former Scotland manager Craig Brown who passed away recently.

He said during PMQs: "On Sunday, the Prime Minister patronised the public when he told them that, in the face of ever increasing mortgage bills, that they simply need to hold their nerve. What a nerve. So may I ask him, the near billionaire, when was the last time that he struggled to pay a bill?"

Several Tory MPs groaned when Flynn mentioned Sunak's wealth. Sunak replied: "The reason that mortgage rates are rising is because of inflation. That is the root cause which is why it's absolutely the right policy to tackle high inflation and reduce it back to target.

"Now, that does mean that we do have to make difficult decisions. It does mean we have to be patient while the impact of those decisions actually has an impact.

"But in the meantime as I was explaining previously, we are taking practical steps to support mortgage holders across the United Kingdom, particularly through the SMI scheme and the new mortgage charter."

Flynn then had a go at Sunak over public sector pay rises. He said: "That answer confirms what we already know, that this Prime Minister's out of touch and the Tory Party is soon to be out of time.

"What the public really want is change. But in a week where the Conservative Party and indeed the Labour Party both refused to accept proposals for public sector pay raises, whilst at the same time, accepting the economic damage of Brexit, is it not the case the Westminster does not offer the people real change nor real hope for the future?"

NHS staff sickness hits record high in England

IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES

By Nick Triggle

BBC

Health correspondent

Staff sickness in the NHS in England has reached record levels.

Figures for 2022 show an absence rate - the proportion of days lost - of 5.6%, meaning the NHS lost the equivalent of nearly 75,000 staff to illness.

This is higher than during the peak pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 - and a 29% rise on the 2019 rate.

Mental health problems were the most common cause, responsible for nearly a quarter of absences, the Nuffield Trust analysis of official NHS data shows.

Big rises were also seen in cold, coughs, infections and respiratory problems, likely to be linked to the continued circulation of Covid as well as the return of flu last year.

There were three categories covering these types of illnesses. If combined, they would be responsible for more sickness than mental health.

Staff leaving

The think tank warned the NHS was stuck in a "seemingly unsustainable cycle" of increased work and burnout, which was contributing to staff leaving.

The analysis, exclusively for BBC News, comes ahead of the publication of the government and NHS England's long-awaited workforce plan.

Nuffield Trust senior fellow Dr Billy Palmer said: "The health service is grappling with a difficult new normal when it comes to staff sickness leave.

"There has been a lot of focus on recruitment but we need more endeavour to improve the working conditions of existing staff and protect them from illness.

"The workforce plan needs to have concrete support to enable employers to improve NHS staff experience if the service is to break this cycle of staff absences, sickness and leaving rates."

'Psychological strain'

The NHS sickness rate, the highest since records began, in 2010, is above the public sector average of 3.6%.

The Nuffield Trust warned it was likely to be an undercount of the true figure as not every absence would have been recorded.

And while recording systems differed in Wales and Scotland, it was clear those nations were also seeing increased levels of sickness in the NHS.

Miriam Deakin, of NHS Providers, which represents health managers, said the findings "laid bare the psychological strain on staff".

She said the absences came on top of 110,000 vacancies in the health service and warned the situation was having a "knock-on effect on patient care".

Unison head of health Sara Gorton said the rise in illness was due to the "unrelenting pressure" on the NHS.

"Until the NHS has sufficient employees to care for and treat all the people needing its help, absence levels will keep going through the roof. If there's to be a healthy NHS, it first needs a healthy workforce."

UK

Illegal Migration Bill: Government accused of ignoring international law during House of Lords defeats

Peers put forward four amendments on the government's Illegal Migration Bill, with votes on more expected next week. Conservative MPs will get the opportunity to overrule the upper chamber when the legislation returns to the House of Commons but the government will have to explain itself.

Tim Baker
Political reporter
Wednesday 28 June 2023

Demonstrators protesting against the Illegal Migration Bill in Parliament Square, London earlier this year


Defeats in the House of Lords mean the government will need to make the case about why it should not be legally bound by international refugee conventions.

The government suffered a series of setbacks on its Illegal Migration Bill in the House of Lords on Wednesday, amid fierce opposition from peers.

One of the amendments passed by the ermined legislators included a requirement for the government to abide by a series of international agreements such as the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights, the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The bill seeks to prevent people who cross the Channel from claiming asylum, instead looking to deport them to where they originated or to a third country like Rwanda, and will also introduce caps on the number of people entering the UK.

But the Lords called for changes to the government's proposed law.

Peers voted to say the bill should only apply from when it is brought into law - rather than it being backdated to 7 March.

The upper house went on to vote to change the law to allow unaccompanied children to claim asylum, and to ensure alleged victims of people trafficking are not detained or deported before they can apply to a referral system for protection and support.

After these four votes, the balloting system in the House of Lords failed, meaning the session will resume on Monday.

Peers will be deciding whether they want to attempt to force Home Secretary Suella Braverman to consider asylum claims from people who have not been removed from the UK within six months, as well as limiting the destinations where LGBTQ people can be deported.

Once the amendments have been voted on, the bill will return to the House of Commons, where government MPs could vote to strip out the changes made by the other House.

Read more:
Cost of sending each migrant to countries such as Rwanda is £169,000

Children detained under Illegal Migration Bill at risk of PTSD and suicide

Government plans to house migrants in marquees across country

From May: Migration bill an 'utter failure'

However, the government will still have to explain why it does not think a legal requirement to abide by international refugee charters is necessary after the votes in the Lords.

"Stopping the boats" is one of Rishi Sunak's five priorities as prime minister.

Home Office minister Lord Murray of Blidworth accused peers of trying to derail the bill, branding the change a "wrecking amendment" that would make it unworkable.

Explained:
Is the government's new Illegal Migration Bill legal?

But Conservative Baroness Helic said: "The government say they believe it is compliant. A great number of others, including some of the bodies tasked with implementing these conventions, say that it is not.

"What is clear is that disobeying or disapplying international agreements which bear the name of the United Kingdom is not acceptable.

"If the government is unhappy with international obligations, then they are free to seek to renegotiate them, but simply ignoring our international legal commitments in pursuit of domestic expediency puts us in very bad company."

When it comes to children, the government's plans would only allow people to stay in the UK until they turn 18, and they would not be able to stay in the country.

The amendment to allow youngsters to make claims to stay was championed by Labour peer Lord Dubs, who fled the Nazis as a child on the Kindertransport scheme.

Brexit has brought “zero benefit” to UK business, says Brewdog boss

Leaving the EU has “massively handicapped UK companies that do business in Europe", James Watt has said

Stacks of BrewDog beer cans at their brewery in Ellon, Scotland (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

The CEO of brewery and pub chain Brewdog has poured a pint of the sourest beer possible all over Brexit.

James Watt told Bloomberg that Britain’s departure from the European Union has brought about a “significant negative impact” on his own company’s operations and “massively handicapped UK companies that do business in Europe, with zero benefit at all.”

Watt went on the attack after identifying Brexit as one reason behind Brewdog’s latest financial figures, which show an operating loss of £24million. He said his company’s operations in EU countries had been hampered by red tape incurred by both the decision to leave and the subsequent implementation of that decision.

He said: “We sell so much beer in mainland Europe. We own and operate our own buyers in France, Germany, Italy and Holland. Just getting our beer to those buyers is significantly more expensive and significantly more difficult.

“For me, it’s just massively handicapped UK companies that do business in Europe, with zero benefit at all. I think it’s been tragic for UK business and a lot of the economic issues the UK is facing – more inflation than other places, being harder to do business, is a result of the catastrophic decision to leave the EU. It’s really crippled businesses in the UK.”

Watt also claimed the government’s “sheer incompetence” had helped to create conditions in which the cost of producing a case of beer was almost 40% more expensive than it was 18 months ago.

He said: “That’s at a time where consumers have less disposable income, so we’ve had to absorb the vast majority of that cost increase, which has made things really challenging.”

Watt’s view is diametrically opposed to that of Wetherspoons CEO Tim Martin, who told LBC last week that he had no regrets about backing Brexit with beermats and magazines in his pubs prior to the 2016 referendum.

Martin told Andrew Marr he was still “amazed by the depth of emotion but I don’t think many people have changed their minds.

“Have I regrets? No, I think, for humanity to survive, I think we need democracy… and my bons to pick with the EU is you don’t elect the president by universal suffrage and MEPs can’t initiate legislation and the ECJ, the court, isn’t accountable to Parliament.

“I think the most powerful elixir for economics and for personal freedoms is democracy. And when you start reducing it, the level of economic performance eventually declines.”

Alas, as Watt might tell him, Brexit seems to have started a decline in economic performance that is anything but gradual…

UK

Cambridgeshire businesses named and shamed by the government for not paying workers minimum wage

By Paul Gallagher

 29 JUN 2023

Firms have been named and shamed by the government (Getty)

Cambridgeshire workers were among more than 63,500 staff who were underpaid by a total of nearly £5 million because their employers failed to pay them the minimum wage. Two Cambridgeshire firms have been “named and shamed” by the government for breaking the minimum wage law.

They join retail giants WH Smith, Marks & Spencer and Argos on the government list. Many of the businesses named are small companies including hotels, hairdressers, restaurants and pre-school nurseries.

Kevin Hollinrake, minister for enterprise, markets and small business, said: “Paying the legal minimum wage is non-negotiable and all businesses, whatever their size, should know better than to short-change hard-working staff.

“Most businesses do the right thing and look after their employees, but we’re sending a clear message to the minority who ignore the law: pay your staff properly or you’ll face the consequences.”

Tangerine Properties in South Cambridgeshire and the Peterborough-based United Church Schools Trust are among over 200 firms that have been outed.

Tangerine Properties, a hospitality firm that dissolved in 2020, underpaid five staff by a total of £743, or an average of £148 per worker over seven months in 2018. The United Church Schools Trust underpaid two workers a total of £554, or an average of £277 each, also in 2018.

The employers have been made to pay back what they owed, and in addition, were fined around £7 million.

The area with the most firms listed is Westminster, with eight companies, followed by Armagh and Leeds, both with five firms. Four companies are listed in Manchester, Glasgow and Wokingham. There are 26 hotels on the list, 15 hairdressing or beauty salons, 13 restaurants, and ten providers of pre-primary school education.

The list includes Blackpool Pleasure Beach Limited, which underpaid 12 staff, and Warrington Wolves rugby league club, which had to pay 34 staff a total of over £7,500. High street retailer WH Smith was the worst offender, according to HMRC, with the new figures claiming it failed to pay around £1 million to 17,607 workers.

The retailer blamed this on an error related to its company uniform policy. A spokesman for WH Smith said: “Following a review with HMRC in 2019, and in common with a number of retailers, it was brought to our attention that we had misinterpreted how the statutory wage regulations were applied to our uniform policy for staff working in our stores.

“This was a genuine error and it was rectified immediately with all colleagues reimbursed in 2019.”

Marks & Spencer failed to pay £578,390 to 5,363 workers, the report said. In response, an M&S spokesman said: “Like many other organisations, M&S is only named in the list because of an unintentional technical issue from over four years ago.”

Cromer's Cliftonville Hotel failed to pay staff minimum wage

25th June

The former owners of a clifftop Cromer hotel failed to pay the minimum wage to its lowest paid workers.

North Norfolk Hospitality Limited, which previously owned The Cliftonville Hotel in Cromer before current owners City Pub Group took over the business in 2021, did not pay three members of staff at the hotel the legal minimum wage.

North Norfolk Hospitality Ltd were named and shamed in a list of more than 200 companies that failed to pay staff the minimum wage, which was published by the government earlier this week.

According to Companies House, North Norfolk Hospitality Ltd was wound up last year.

The company failed to pay three people a combined £908.56 – but it has since paid back the staff.

Built in 1897, the Edwardian Cliftonville Hotel is a Grade II listed building with 30 sea-view bedrooms.

A total of 202 UK businesses were ordered to repay workers the money they were owed and face penalties of almost £7 million after breaches left 63,000 workers out of pocket.

It comes after a 9.7pc rise in the National Living Wage and minimum Wage paid to almost three million workers.

City Pub Group, which currently owns The Cliftonville Hotel, in Runton Road, said it is aware of the failings of the hotel’s previous owners, which took place in a three-year period between 2015 and 2018.

A City Pub Group spokesperson said: “The matter brought to our attention today precedes our ownership by almost three years. As such we have no knowledge of the details involved.”

Of the 202 businesses included in the list, 39pc of employers deducted pay from workers’ wages.

Another 39pc of employers failed to pay workers correctly for their working time, and 21pc paid the incorrect apprenticeship rate.